ABSTRACT: The relationship between communication and society has been extensively studied in the 20th Century, following the dissemination of mass media announced already during the 19th Century (photog- raphy, cinema, comics, radio, telephone, etc.). However, communication has always been one of the key variables of the entire human history, and not only of modernity. Through a retrospective survey, the es- say analyses communication as an adaptive invention of mankind to the environment. A winning answer to the primordial struggles for survival, communication distinguishes the human species from earlier times for the structuring of a shared oral language. Starting from the extraordinary flexibility of the human body as a multi-media and multi-meaningful tool, the essay offers a communicative revisionism that involves the antiquity, the Middle Ages and modernity. Sharing the idea of “the media as human extension” (McLu- han), the author proposes some examples for a new reading of single tales of the Odyssey, i.e. the sirens’ and the Cyclops’ episode. Eventually, five directions are proposed to run for a wide-ranging investigation of the relationship “communication-society” in the past: invention of symbols, sharing of meanings, crea- tion of networks, construction of knowledge and exercise of power.
THE BODY OF THE ANCESTOR AND OTHER STORIES. Social Sciences and the distant past of communication
CRISTANTE, Stefano
2017-01-01
Abstract
ABSTRACT: The relationship between communication and society has been extensively studied in the 20th Century, following the dissemination of mass media announced already during the 19th Century (photog- raphy, cinema, comics, radio, telephone, etc.). However, communication has always been one of the key variables of the entire human history, and not only of modernity. Through a retrospective survey, the es- say analyses communication as an adaptive invention of mankind to the environment. A winning answer to the primordial struggles for survival, communication distinguishes the human species from earlier times for the structuring of a shared oral language. Starting from the extraordinary flexibility of the human body as a multi-media and multi-meaningful tool, the essay offers a communicative revisionism that involves the antiquity, the Middle Ages and modernity. Sharing the idea of “the media as human extension” (McLu- han), the author proposes some examples for a new reading of single tales of the Odyssey, i.e. the sirens’ and the Cyclops’ episode. Eventually, five directions are proposed to run for a wide-ranging investigation of the relationship “communication-society” in the past: invention of symbols, sharing of meanings, crea- tion of networks, construction of knowledge and exercise of power.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
